Inn general, since tablets are mass produced through an automated process, a large amount of unsatisfactory tablets may occur in a discharges process, rather than the occurrence of defects caused due to components or dosages thereof.
Accordingly, a process of inspecting defects in tablet appearance, such as the attachment of, or tablet pollution by, foreign substances, cracking or partial damage through contact or impacts between tablets, deformations or printing defects, has been required.
A process of inspecting an appearance of a tablet having a capsular, elliptical, or circular cross-sectional shape is moving away from visual inspections performed by workers to automatic testing using an automatic testing apparatus. Various types of automatic test apparatuses for automatic testing have been proposed.
When automatically inspecting tablets using an automatic test apparatus, a method of determining the presence and absence of defects in an appearance of a tablet through capturing an image of one side of the tablet, using a camera, while transferring the tablet, capturing an image of the other side of the tablet, using the camera, while transferring the tablet with its position reversed, and processing the captured images has been adopted.
Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. Hei. 11-51873 discloses an example of the technology described above. This relates to an apparatus for inspecting an appearance of a tablet, in which a holding groove or an accommodation groove is formed around a transfer drum at a predetermined interval to hold tablets. The apparatus may be required to allow a supply unit to supply tablets at a constant speed and interval, in order to supply the tablets to the holding groove formed around the transfer drum at the predetermined interval.
Thus, it may be difficult to accurately control the rotation speed of the transfer drum and the speed and interval of the supply unit. In particular, it may be difficult to vary an inspection speed according to tablet shapes or inspection difficulties.